


Faultlines

by RedAnthem



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Dark, Don't read if you really like Diego/Lila, F/M, Grooming, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Moral Ambiguity, Revenge Sex, Sibling Bonding, Violence, Vomiting, not a fun time for anybody
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:36:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28433280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedAnthem/pseuds/RedAnthem
Summary: A fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Energy release associated with rapid movement on active faults is the cause of most earthquakes.They’re ancient, stubborn, and unyielding. Their destruction is unpredictable yet inevitable. And you certainly shouldn’t try building a house on them.Diego tries to get Lila to live with him in the Hargreeves house. It doesn't work out as well as he hopes.
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Lila Pitts, Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy/Lila Pitts, Number Five | The Boy/The Handler (Umbrella Academy)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 44





	Faultlines

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic, the Hargreeves find their way back home eventually, but mom and Pogo stay dead. There's a scene of an assault, starting from "Since their fight" and ending with "trash can." If you want to read but want to skip that part specifically, there's your cue. 
> 
> I don't intend for this to be anti-Lila or Diego/Lila, but if you really like Lila and the ship, you might not enjoy this.

It’s the anniversary of Reginald’s funeral, and needless to say, the household wasn’t doing anything. Well, most of the household, anyway. Lila had been tracking Five’s movements around the house. She knew that he visited his dear old daddy’s office regularly after dark to get drunk, and had been doing so for a while now.

She sets up her trap there. He finds her sitting in Reginald’s place, looking like a pomegranate in her buoyant, shimmery, dark pink dress. She even got her hair done for him; it was stiff and smooth like combed obsidian, arranged in exact yet girlish curls, like how her mother taught her. Her feet are kicked up onto the old man’s desk, adorned with glass slippers. She’s Cinderella tonight.

He looks at her eerily in the light. He looks like he's dressed in funeral clothes, for daddy probably. How touching. The whites of his eyes match the stark whiteness of his shirt. She can see his pupils contract in the pool of his corpse-blue irises. 

“Knew I’d find you here,” she says slowly. Of course she knew. It was stupid for two trained assassins to share the same territory, after all. 

“And what, exactly, are you doing here?” His gaunt face, lit by the yellow glow of the floor lamp, contorts into a hateful sneer. He looks like a god of death. Death in a young boy. His lips are curved into something feral, inhuman, and ancient; so strange on his teenaged face. A child yet not a child. 

She smiles at him wickedly. “It’s prom night.” 

* * *

It was Diego’s idea, which should’ve been the first sign to everyone that it wasn’t going to work. God bless her boyfriend, but he’s not very smart. She goes along with it, because he looks like a sweet puppy, all hopeful and full of love and affection, his eyes all on her, when he says it. _Let’s move in together, to my family’s house. We can be a family._ Don’t you want to be a family, Lila?

So she arrives on the doorstep of the Casa de Hargreeves, (non Commission) suitcase in hand, containing all her belongings, mostly clothes. She’s holding Diego’s hand. 

She greets Luther and Klaus, two of the house’s permanent residents. The third has yet to show himself. He’s a pesky fucker. The two men greet her with surprise, a touch of disbelief, and indifference. There’s bad blood between her and the entire family, really, but that’s true for all of them with each other too, so she fits right in. 

Diego’s not quite on cloud 9 (cloud number 2? Why is it the number 9 anyway?) but she can tell this means a lot to him. He loves his family, even for all his posturing, she always knew that. He scolds and cuts up with Klaus, punches Luther on the arm with fraternal machismo. 

“What do you mean, Lila’s going to be living with us?” 

It’s the pesky fucker. 

It had been a few years since she saw him last, but ironically, only by seeing Five again does she feel the length of time. The boy-not-boy preserved in amber grew up, just a smidge. He can look down at her now in a way not just figurative, and she hates it, just a little. He stands next to Luther.

“Hello, grandpa.” He’s out of the uniform, but doesn’t dress all that differently, still in dress slacks and argyle sweater vests. 

“Hello again, _brat,”_ he sneers, like a boyish old man, or an exceptionally world-weary teenager. He turns to his brother, her boyfriend. “Diego, she’s not staying here.”

“Since when are you the boss in the house?” Really mature. They tended to do that, the Hargreeves--it could be decades, it could be minutes, but they always bickered like children when they saw each other.

Klaus sighs from his spot on the couch, where he was stretched out like a cat. “Well, I think it would be kinda interesting with Lila around. Might liven the place up a bit.” He wasn’t on drugs anymore, from what she heard through Diego. He shoots her a tired smile.

“I’m not against it, so long as she won’t cause any trouble,” Luther speaks with a touch of authority. Five scowls up at him. “It might be good for us. All of us. To let the water go under the bridge, that sort of deal.” 

She shrugs. “I promise I won’t start any fights. I’m kinda over it,” the unspoken _it_ evaporating in the air like a miasma. “I’m willing to try.” 

“See, she’s trying. Come on, Five,” Diego says.

Five gazes over his brothers and Lila with an ancient scowl. She wonders if he was born scowling or if he was just genetically predisposed to it. “I see I’ve been outvoted. Whatever. Fuck you all.” There is a twist, a shock of blue, and he disappears.

And that is how it all began.

* * *

Before she found out just how deep and dark the links between them were, Lila actually kind of liked Five, in a weird way. He was funny, and fun to tease. She’d already known he was from the Commission, like her, so they’d had that in common. The only problem was that he was smarter than Diego, and therefore much too smart to trust her.

And then she found out he killed her parents.

She remembered their meeting in the field, in the snow. She remembered feeling hot and cold with loathing at the same time. It was a funny image, now: the two Hargreeves boys meeting with their exes, then sent running and tripping away with their tails between their legs as a horde of people in suits ran after them, guns blazing. It was ridiculous, it was dramatic, it was just her mum’s style, and she loved it. She loved getting to use her power too. She felt invincible, like an instrument of pure vengeance.

When she told him what he did, he didn’t even remember his crime. He looked troubled over it for all of 2 microseconds before saying it was _just a job,_ _sorry for ruining your life._ And that's why you're not cut out to be an assassin, Lila. You're not good enough. And then Diego showed up, and her mother, and then things got really confusing for a while. So she took the briefcase and ran.

* * *

The first few days of living in the Hargreeves house were spent getting acclimated to the place. Move-in was easy. There were dozens of guest rooms. She took a spacious, stately one with a small walk-in closet. Diego still had his own childhood bedroom, but didn’t sleep in it, instead spending his nights spooning her. It was nice.

She didn’t see Five all that often, which was fine by her.

“You two didn’t used to be so hostile to each other,” Diego says, voice muffled with sleep and her hair.

“Are you kidding? He always wanted to kill me.”

“Yeah, but it was different.” It was. Their fights and disagreements looked so petty to her now. Ignoring a high-five? Calling her _entirely average_ while his shoe was on her throat? Child’s play.

But something dark had settled between them now. It was thick and noxious like oil or tar. It was embedded deep into the Earth. Or maybe it was in the Earth itself; a crack between tectonic plates, old stone scar tissue. The very foundation of their relationship. It had been silent and steady for a short while, like how tectonic movements are, until one day its own force overpowers the friction holding it back, and everything inevitably falls down.

* * *

When she finally _does_ see Five, it’s at breakfast one day, and he’s chatting with Luther and Klaus over a cup of coffee. He’s only mildly pissed off, from the looks of it, which is an average day for him. He’s also wearing a simple tee and… boxers? White and striped adorably with baby-blue. Weird.

Though his state is hardly comparable to Klaus’s, who is sitting cross-legged on the table clad with nothing but golden spandex panties. The only one actually dressed is Luther.

“Really, man?” Diego speaks up behind her. “Put some pants on, Five.”

“What? Why?”

“Diego’s right,” Luther chides, “you should be dressed.”

“Since when do you get to tell me what to do? I’m 60!” Strange words coming from a face so young, with a tone so downright _petulant._ _Today on Things That Only Make Sense Because They’re The Hargreeves…_

“Do you have to argue over everything?”

“Yes. You already know that. And Klaus practically has his whole dick hanging out but you’re telling _me_ to go get dressed?” At the word ‘dick’ Klaus starts giggling to himself, bagel in hand.

“Just go.”

“No. It’s like 80 degrees in here and I’m out of shorts.”

“Aw, not the schoolboy shorts,” Lila pouts mockingly. “I kinda liked those.” Five glares at her in response.

“I’m not asking again.”

“Good.” Five sips his coffee.

Diego groans and throws a knife that lands with a _thud_ next to Five’s hand, who doesn’t even flinch. _“Go,_ now.”

“Again, _Klaus.”_

“Again, _go.”_

“Bother me again and the shirt's coming off.” 

“I’ve always loved a little stripping in my morning routine,” Klaus hums.

This was getting annoying. “I really don’t mind it, guys, it’s whatever.”

Five squints his eyes at her. The boys are quiet; she doesn’t know why. “Fine. I’ll put on the damn pants,” he says to himself, and marches off.

* * *

Though it may be hard for his family (and Lila) to believe sometimes, Five does actually feel guilt for his actions. If he didn’t care at all he would still be at the Commission. He was good at it, the killing, more than good, and he took pride in his skill. He told Luther he found no joy in it--a half truth, depending on how one would interpret the meaning of the word ‘joy.’ Was there a thrill? Yes. Was there a sense of satisfaction, after a job well done? Also yes. But there was also a bone-deep weariness that he’d yet to shake off, something he has been trying to ignore, hoping that would force it to slumber somehow and let him actually _live_ his life.

Since he got back home he’d been spending a lot of time drunk in his room, admittedly. Hazel once told him that maybe this could be his chance to redo his life; spend his youth like he should have before it was robbed by the apocalypse. Diego told him he needed to get a hobby. 

Diego also decided to bring Lila back into their lives. He knew they were still dating, though he didn’t know if Diego was still living in a boiler room or, and this was news to him, _The Handler’s_ old flat in London. Whichever it was, Diego decided he had enough apparently, and thought now was as good as ever for moving back home, Lila in tow. Which is the worst thing Diego has done to him in a while, and all the more reason to ignore any of his advice. 

He felt bad, okay? Inside of him was a yawning abyss, like Ben’s interdimensional portal of a stomach, except it was full of his own sins instead of alien eldritch monsters. He felt bad. But if he felt bad, and digested the appropriate amount of guilt to match his crimes against Lila, he’d have to feel the same way about all of his kills, which was only fair. And he’d killed hundreds. How could he possibly make it up to hundreds of people and their loved ones, spread across time and space? Didn’t he already save the world? What more did he have to do?

He’s selfish, he knows.

He swallows his dad's wine like it’s a panacea. It’s the color of pomegranates. If he can just avoid her, he can survive this. He’s fine. He knows he’s fine.

* * *

It’s their birthday. Or, at least it would be, if not for Five’s screwing with the time line, putting them all at different real ages. When they were kids they would’ve loved to have different birthdays, but now it’s a bonding thing. So they keep October 1st as their designated birth date.

It’s also their first birthday spent with Lila, which is special, to Diego at least. Five is feeling a bit apprehensive.

After only having three (and then five) residents for a couple of years, the house feels crowded when the others arrive, bringing their noise. Allison tried to bring Claire, but taking her to the opposite coast was a tall order for Patrick, apparently. So it was just the Hargreeves seven, plus Lila. 

None of them have any outside friends, still, but those things take time.

Five is sitting at the table that they all actually use. Earlier, they all tried to bake cakes, like mom used to. 

Mom is still gone, sitting at a much different table. Her hardware is complex but ultimately fixable; it’s her programming, her mind, that is irreplaceable. She was made to be as close to an ideal super-mother as possible, something they all either were disturbed by or worshipped her for, and yet it’s this simple fact that makes her most like a flawed, terribly real human.

Perhaps out of a sense of guilt, Vanya took on most of the labor. She’s also the only one with passable cooking and baking ability, though that’s besides the point. The cakes turned out pretty good, actually. She’d lovingly adorned his, the chocolate one that he’d share with Diego, with the candles for ‘61’ along with Diego’s ‘33.’ Neither of them physically match the ages on the cake.

He’d never thought he’d make it to 61. He doesn’t feel like it. He’s heard the expression before, but this feels different, in a way that’s genuinely unsettling.

“Is something wrong with it?” He’d been staring at the cake, a bit too obviously, apparently; it draws the attention and concern of Vanya. 

“No, no, it’s fine. You did great.” She gives him a smile, one of those soft ones. They’re more common these days. It’s almost enough to settle him. His eyes are still stuck on the shapes of the numbers. Instead of speaking further, he picks up his candles and switches them around. Then he shrugs at her. “Just thought I’d try something out. I should probably be keeping track, anyway.” 

She looks at him, knowingly, like she did when they were kids, back when they didn’t need to use words at all. He missed that look. She plants a kiss into his hair, and he pretends to shake it off, but a grin crawls onto his face anyway. Klaus makes annoying cooing noises at him, though nobody else notices, and nobody comments on the candles when they go to blow them out later over the song. 

He can’t pick out Lila’s voice from their disjointed chorus, with Klaus and Allison competing for volume. Her dark eyes flash in the candlelight.

He’s selfish, he knows. But he already traded his youth before, and he wasn’t going to do it again. He already did his time in purgatory. He’d lived to see the end of the world, multiple times, lost precious decades in it. Was this too much to ask for? 

They blow the candles out, as synchronously as they can, and she disappears from sight. He would give up anything for his family, he would, and already did. But sharing a birthdate and powers doesn’t make Lila his family, and neither does living with her. That’s how he explains it to himself, anyway.

* * *

Lila’s in the courtyard, under a gazebo, sharing a smoke with Klaus and Allison. Diego’s hands are either around her waist or a beer. It’s night, but they’re lit up by some tasteful string lights she helped them put up that morning. They’re chatting, about everything and nothing. It’s a nice feeling. Makes her feel like old friends, or family.

“My first kiss was on set for a live-action Cinderella movie,” Allison shares. “I was 17, and I hadn’t even had my first kiss yet. We had to do it multiple times to get the take right, which just sucked all the magic out of it, really. Can you believe it?” 

That’s how Lila knows she’s talking to her, specifically. Her actual siblings would probably have known the story already. Allison doesn’t talk to Lila much--a bit of bad blood between them--but she appreciates the subtle gesture as the olive branch that it is. “My first kiss was on a job, too, so I kinda get it,” she replies. 

“What job?” Diego asks.

“My first job for the Commission,” she grins at him from behind. “Some French baker’s son, the 1920s. Very romantic atmosphere.” It goes unspoken that she killed the poor boy afterwards. _How sad._ But it’s quite literally buried in the past.

“I’m almost jealous,” Diego hums. She can feel him vibrate like a cat behind her.

“You’re the first guy I’ve slept with who didn’t get his throat slit afterwards. Feel _honored.”_

The others chuckle and shake their heads. It shouldn’t be funny or flirty, but it is, because they’re not normal people. They’re not a normal family. She’s relaxed in Diego’s arms, shielded from the fall chill by his jacket. He kisses her to show that yes, he is in fact honored.

She’s warm. She could get used to this. It’s so easy, fitting in with these people, even after all that happened. They’re the same as her, after all. And she’s not even the worst of the bunch, anyway; she’s not the only one who choked out a sister, and she didn't end the world in a fiery apocalypse nearly _twice._ Like a certain somebody with unfairly good baking skills, cough cough.

Her train of thought takes her to its inevitable stop and she feels like she must be the one getting choked, because suddenly she can’t breathe and she has to almost throw Diego’s arms off from her sides. He stares at her, confused and hurt, but she shakes her head nervously, placatingly at him. She walks away from the gazebo, everyone’s burning eyes trailing after her until she disappears from sight. 

The rest of the courtyard looks even more desolate than usual now, compared to the gazebo. She spends the night in a hotel closet. She finds out the next morning after making up with Diego that Five had left early too, with Vanya, who claimed to have lessons in the morning. He was avoiding her, probably. 

It was a fool’s errand, really, to think she could be part of this family. An insult to herself, and an insult to her parents, the real family she lost when Five killed them and let The Handler take off with her. Orphaned and stolen from her own home. She couldn’t forgive him for that, couldn’t simply do nothing about it, couldn’t sit and eat cake with the person that ruined her life like the rest of them did with Vanya and each other. There was nothing he could do to bring them back to life, or bring back the life she lost with them. 

* * *

Though she was loath to give him credit, she knew she didn’t see much of Five on purpose. He was avoiding her, for the sake of peace in the house. Which meant she was being observed, which made her feel funny, in a bad way.

She spends her days exploring the house, or the city with Diego. When she lived with mother in London, their flat was decorated like a doll’s, without any real personal touches. The woman didn’t even stay there; she had no idea where she actually slept. Her office was where she kept their belongings, which were really just trophies from old missions, both her’s and later on Lila’s. The Hargreeves house was similar, though Olympic in scale. Some parts of it felt like a museum: framed newspaper and magazine clippings of ridiculously clothed children, statues and awards, useless keys to the city. The hall of family portraits had a cold echo to it, telling a story of gradual deterioration that she only learned second-hand. Five was missing from all but the first. 

At the bottom of the house is a large basement, an underground warehouse. It’s fascinating. Crates of weapons and evidence from crime scenes are stashed away in shelves that tower over her, with names like “Perseus” and “Dr. Terminal” inscribed on tags and labels. Trophies from the Academy’s glory days, when they were all playing superhero. 

Well, all but one. He hadn’t noticed her presence until too late, as he was preoccupied reading labels, like her. He regards her coldly, on instinct. His jaw clenches, then unclenches, and she can hear him exhale over the whirring of the industrial AC. 

“What are you doing here?”

“Just exploring,” she says, with affected lightness. He stares. Her heart’s jammed somewhere wrong in her chest. There’s an awkward silence.

He shakes his head at himself. “...I _am_ sorry, you know. About your parents.” 

He’s actually doing this now.She can’t believe it. The polite sympathy in his voice burns her like a hard slap.

“It was just-”

“If you’re about to say it was just a job, I _will_ choke you.”

He goes silent.

She feels a cold rage sweep through her, like a tsunami. She’s a natural disaster. She wants to hurt something, wants to hurt him. It was just a job to him, just another task he had to complete. He hogtied them, her parents, and butchered them like animals. What could her life have looked like, if she got to grow up with them? She wasn’t like the Hargreeves, whose powers would have made them stick out anywhere, regardless. She could’ve gotten by with a normal life, with two parents who _wanted_ her, who loved her. A real family. 

She thinks of the crawlspace they made for her. Had decorated, she remembered, so that she wouldn’t feel scared of it as a little girl. They knew someone was coming for her, because she was born special, and they made it to keep her safe, but she was caught anyway. Because of _him._

She wants to destroy something. She wants to destroy _him._

She pulls out a crate of things, she doesn’t know what. Five regards her curiously. Inside is a bunch of junk: a couple of small Academy girls’ uniforms, a framed print of a simple painting, a handful of child’s toys. She thinks about the crawlspace. 

“Those must belong to-”

She doesn’t hear who. She kicks it over, sending the contents spilling out between them. 

He’s stunned. His eyes flash dangerously. “What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?”

Instead of answering, she pulls another crate out.

“Get away from that. _Get out of here,_ those aren’t yours.” He goes to grab and pull her away, but she smacks his hands.

“They’re not yours either. I know, because you abandoned them, didn't you?” She grins dangerously, makes herself like a predator, her teeth white as a shark’s. “So you weren’t here either.”

He scoffs at her, turns aside. “I try to be nice-”

“You were too busy eating roaches and rubbing one out with a mannequin.” 

He rolls his eyes, looking oh-so juvenile, and it makes her angry. “Oh, fuck you.”

“And shooting innocent florists,” she says, wielding her voice like a knife.

_“Just what do you want.”_

She twists it. “And getting fucked by my mother.”

He freezes, sea glass eyes bulging like a fish’s, then takes a step back. Shoves his hands in the pockets of his slacks and makes a face. “So she told you.”

“She told me everything. She was my mother, after all. Your own fault, by the way.”

He has a strange and distant look on his face, not meeting her eyes. She’s hurting him, she’s actually hurting him, the Great and Terrible Five, and it’s working. She can breathe again, swallow her heart back into place. 

He stares at a toy xylophone on the ground like he can see through it. He turns his face away from her, back hunched like the old man he was, and teleports away.

* * *

They’re all sitting at the table in some kind of kitchen-slash-rec room. The one that the family _actually_ eats in. They’re rich enough that they have multiple rooms for these sorts of things, and yet they only really use one of them. 

Five is conspicuously absent.

“You and Five had an argument?” Diego asks her. He’s reaching for the container of rice next to her. They’re having take-away; a common occurrence, since none of them really know how to cook, the one person (?) sitting on a worktable somewhere, reduced to scrap. Diego stares at it forlornly sometimes. Apparently it used to be his mother. She passes the rice to him and meets his concerned gaze.

“How did you know?”

“I told him,” Luther says, looking like a big shy bear. “He didn’t tell me what it was about, though.”

“Well, _I_ can guess,” Klaus adds, helpfully. “It’s kinda obvious, isn’t it?”

She sighs. “Listen, guys, I tried my best. I did. He just ticked me off. So he started it.”

They’re all quelled by that statement. It is quite common, apparently, for Number Five to start shit. Who knew.

“If he apologizes, genuinely, _seriously,_ would it make you feel better?” Diego says, already on step 2, probably mentally running through ways he can bribe his brother.

She thinks in silence.

“I don’t know.” She lies. She knows, in her heart, the real answer, but she spares sharing it with Diego, because it would only break his heart.

* * *

“Could you stop running away for one second and just let me finish?”

“And why should I, Diego? You never listened to _me._ ” 

“I just want you to realize that Lila’s at least trying to get along. She’s trying, even though she shouldn’t have to.”

“What? It’s _my_ house.”

“She shouldn’t have to because it’s not her fault she’s mad at you. It’s yours.”

“...It’s still my house, and she’s invading my space.”

“Can’t you just try? Can’t you just stop being prideful for one damn second and just _try_ to feel sorry, for once in your life?”

“Fuck off, Diego.” 

And he’s gone.

He shouldn’t have said that last part, Diego realizes. He knows his brother well enough. When they were kids, before Diego got skilled enough at managing his stutter to keep it out of most regular conversation, Five used to make fun of him. Five always sounded like a little adult; he had the most advanced vocabulary of them and was the most arrogant about it, as he was about anything he could do that others couldn’t. And Dad never stood up for Diego, because he was dad, and he was an asshole. 

Until one day he just stopped. He stopped talking and playing with him entirely, too, stopped playing in groups when Diego was in them. When Diego confronted him about it, sick of getting the cold shoulder, Five told him he didn’t want to be around Diego anymore because he knew he must hate him for all the horrible teasing he did, and there was nothing he could do to take it all back, so he was just going to stop being around him instead. And Diego said no, you idiot, you’re my brother and I love you, you could’ve just said sorry. And Five said sorry and that was that.

He loves Five. He loves Lila too. He loved her even when she was choking Allison with her own rumor, when she was throttling his brothers, when she knocked Vanya out of the sky. That kind of love and forgiveness only exists in his heart for his family. Five is his family, and so is Lila.

He doesn’t know what to do.

* * *

They avoid each other for the next couple of months, repelling each other like magnetic poles. He starts eating his meals in his room; she stops exploring the house, always either in the room or outside in the city. They’re only forced to be in each other’s presence on holidays, and even then, they hardly even look at each other. 

As a result, there are only a few arguments after the incident in the basement, but their lack of verbal sparring only makes the atmosphere worse, somehow. 

She’s been hearing a lot of suggestions from the others about finding a new apartment, and though Diego has been holding on valiantly this whole time, she can tell he’s considering it. He’s been saving money up. It makes her angry, because it was his idea in the first place, that they move together here. She’s lost one home after another, and even though she hates living here sometimes, she doesn’t want to lose yet another.

So she tries to make herself smaller. It’s not so hard to hide, in such a big house.

And he disappears, again and again.

The others hate it, which only makes the situation worse, because of course.

* * *

He’s always running from something, isn’t he? 

He’s sick of running.

But when he’s not running, he’s drinking. Dad’s stash went dry a month or two ago and nobody bothered to restock--Luther doesn’t drink, Diego only does on special occasions and Klaus is trying to stay sober. But he’s got plenty of money and motivation. So he gets a fake ID. Like he's a real boy.

Luther and Klaus keep trying to corner him into interventions. A bit embarrassing, to know that even Klaus thinks he’s got a problem. Whatever. At least they’re not begging him to try to make nice with Lila anymore. She’ll be gone any day now.

It’s funny that her last name is Pitts. He’s the one who’s feeling hollow inside, these days.

He feels ridiculous, and a little bit crazy. He’s spinning really fast in his head but he knows he’s sitting still. It’s like that split second of perceptibility in between jumps, or time travel. Maybe he’s drunk right now; it’s hard to tell. Waking up after blacking out is a bit like time travel. He should tell Klaus he can time travel too. Is this how Klaus felt, all those years? He wouldn’t know. He was gone for so long, after all. Maybe he’s destined to stay that way. He went against the tides of the universe’s will and now he’s stuck like this. He wonders how dad would feel about him now. Once upon a time, he called him the most sensible of the bunch. The one bit of praise he can even remember, and it wasn’t even from his version of dad. If he were mentally 13 as well as physically, back then, he would’ve pounced at the opportunity to shove it in his siblings’ sad faces. His hindbrain _crowed._ He took the humble approach instead, saying it was just because he was older than them all. He still is, technically. Or is he? How long is he going to count numbers nobody else feels but himself? It doesn’t matter anymore. So he stops counting and starts thinking. He’s not acting very sensibly now. So dad’s praise was unearned after all. Okay, that didn’t hurt. It didn’t. He didn’t need it, anyway, he’d spent 45 years without even speaking to dad, to anyone in his family. And then The Handler came along. She made him need her. It was a clever trick, really, waiting to recruit him until all his food stores dried up, when his body was too frail to safely travel for more, until all he had left was alcohol and Dolores. She liked playing those kinds of games with him. Wait until he’s drunk, starving, and desperate, so he can’t say no. Trick him into breaking Commission protocol one time and she’s got enough dirt on him for life. So he can’t complain to Commission HR. So he can’t say no to the next time. And the time after that. So he can’t say she doesn’t own him completely, body and soul. At least he didn’t ever cower; that’s his one respite. Dad taught him to never cower; it’s the cowering that’s shameful. He didn’t back down, didn’t let her drag him. He had that choice; he made it his choice. The memory of her touch is so powerful he can feel her fingernails over his skin. A whole different body and it’s still there. Except she didn’t stop even then, did she? He still needed her, after all. 

He’s sitting in dad’s office; he does that now, because he knows his siblings won’t look for him there. He feels nauseous; soils the carpet with vomit. It lingers in the air and he feels pathetic. He did that once when he was a kid, still practicing spatial jumps to avoid getting his head stuck in walls. Dad scolded him and he took it without flinching, and it made him feel so proud to be that strong at eight years old. His head must still be full of wood, though, because it’s getting hard to think. Dad scowls at him from his portrait for making a mess in his office. He can still feel her fingernails. He freezes. _I told you so._ It’s his own fault, it always is. He’s the boy who flied too close to the sun and melts his own damn wings off, and now he’s falling flat on his face in his own mess again. _I told you so._

_Your own fault, by the way._

* * *

How can you take down an enemy you’re not allowed to kill? Lila asks herself the question every day.

They have their first real fight on her date night with Diego, after months of forced silence. It’s Valentine’s Day. They just got back from dinner at some new fusion restaurant. It was good.

She feels like throwing it all back up when she sees Five in the kitchen. 

Allison and Vanya are home; that’s strange. They’re eating ice cream together in the adjacent room, watching rom-coms that Allison isn’t in. Cute.

Her eyes meet Five’s. His movements are like jelly, and he’s hunched over the countertop, which is how she knows he’s drunk. There’s a glass of water in his hand, and he’s apprehensive of her, wary. She’s supposed to be putting their leftovers away. She slides past him, aiming for the fridge. 

He’s drunk, and it’s funny. He scowls at her, vexed at the intrusion of his personal space, and she grins at him like a shark. 

“What’s your problem?”

“Nothing. Is there something wrong with you? Little man?” 

He puts the glass down, leaning on the counter. “Shut up,” he says. 

Diego stares tensely between them. They were going to fuck later. It was going to be very romantic; she’d put on her sexiest pair of lingerie, waxed herself raw, and made herself smell good and look oh so nice. She’s keeping him waiting. 

And she was behaving so well. 

She pokes Five’s nose with no more force than a butterfly’s kiss. He may be drunk, but he’s not that drunk; he reacts quickly, just like she hoped he would, catching her by the wrist. “Don’t fucking touch me.” His eyes are dark and dangerous in the dimness of the kitchen, hidden under his boyish bangs. He’s not even a boy anymore; he’s a young man, taller and broader in the shoulders than he was at 13. She sizes him up, lets him feel her gaze tracing him. She can feel every finger on her naked wrist.

“And yet you’re still holding me.” He throws her hand away, but doesn’t move.

The house is dark, but Diego’s back is lit by the blue of the telly’s screen in the other room, where Allison and Vanya are. She can hear a faint laugh track. It makes her feel eerie. Her skin crawls. She feels their eyes on her.

She’s close enough to smell the faint acrid scent of alcohol on him, and something else as well that she can’t name. Both sisters are in the kitchen now, standing next to Diego.

“Is everything okay?” Allison asks, dumbly. It grates on her nerves. Her skin’s on fire.

“Mind your business,” she says, eyes not leaving Five’s face.

Five clenches his jaw. “Don’t talk to her that way.”

“Why not? All I said was ‘mind your business.’”

He whips his head back and rolls his eyes. How juvenile. “Oh, fuck you.”

“No thanks.” 

Diego’s voice cuts through the space between them. “Lila, do we need to talk?” He sounds like he’s approaching a scared animal.

“No, I’m fine, thank you.” 

Her voice is childlike but with an old rot on the inside. Like someone else she knows. He’s moved to the sink, making his slow escape, but pretending not to be escaping. His knuckles are white. 

“When are you going to leave, already?”

“I was just about to.”

“No,” he says, staring at Diego pointedly. “When are you both going to fuck off already? Both of you?” He glares at Lila. The unnatural blue light catches his face, and she can see how light his irises are. Nobody moves. “I’m sick of this. Sick of you.”

Diego looks like he’s about to say something, but Lila interrupts him.

“I don’t exactly see why you’re the one that’s angry. If anyone should be angry, it’s me,” she feels terrifying. “You’re the one that killed my parents, after all. Don’t you feel the least bit sorry?” 

The telly’s still on too loud. Some dope is confessing love to his girlfriend. She’s crying, she loves him too. It makes her want to throw up. 

She feels hot and cold at the same time and the electronic buzz and the voices are touching her every nerve and she’s burning.

He stares at her, long and deep. She can see the bags under his eyes, his sallow skin. It makes her want to throw up. He looks like a dead person. 

“To be really honest, Lila?"

His voice is cutting through her like a scythe.

"I don’t fucking care."

She hears the telly-people’s friends all cheer in the background as something happy and sugar sweet starts to play. She’s nauseous. Vanya lets out a broken gasp as Allison is animated back to life. “Okay, okay, that’s enough. _I heard a rumor-”_

 _“That you shut up.”_ Lila feels the force of power leave her lungs. She forgot how good it felt. The other woman’s lips snap shut; her eyes screaming, yet making no sound. The subtle gesture is not lost on anyone.

Five pulls out a knife from the sink. It’s dirty, covered with icing and cake crumbs. 

She laughs and marches up to Five, until she’s only a breath away. “You’re going to stab me? Get it over with. Go ahead, just try to kill me.”

“Don’t do this,” says Diego, with the voice of a man that knows the inevitability of what’s going to happen next. This was always going to happen, at some point. It wasn’t a matter of _if,_ only _when._ Like earthquakes.

Five’s grip on the knife loosens. Releases. 

So she pats him on the head. For the split second her hand is on him she can feel how soft his hair actually is; he didn’t bother putting product in it today. He’s a mess. Without warning he grabs her retreating arm and twists it behind her back, pinning her to the counter in front of them. She can feel a bruise forming. The others shout in alarm. 

“What, don’t like me touching you?” She whispers huskily to him. “Remind you of someone else?”

He sneers. “You’re just like your mother.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?”

He slams her head forward onto the hard counter. Everything goes black for a second; she hears the crack of fireworks. She can feel the blood bubbling up in her nose. His pin on her isn’t secure and she whips around to meet him, only to see air. He’s jumped, so she hops over the table toward the next room as Vanya screeches at them to _stop, please stop._ Diego looks glued in place; his heart has already sunk to the floor and it’s weighing him down. Five was in the living room as well; he’s grabbed a pool stick. It stings like shit when it hits her hand. 

They scuffle for a while; in a fight more scattered than the last one they had back in Dallas. It only ends when Diego finally pulls her off of him. They’re both bruised and bloody but it’s Five who’s laid out, where she was straddling him, her aching hands having pinned his own to the cold floor as he bucked around underneath her. 

Diego doesn’t speak to her that night while he patches her up. Her mind’s not on him anyway. She’s thinking about how good it felt to be on top, the Great and Terrible Five trapped between her legs, his bottom lip swollen and his eyes bright with hate.

* * *

She’d known about him long before they ever met. Everyone at the Commission knew of him, actually. He was kind of a legend around there. He’d gotten hundreds of kills in his career.

They used him as an example, someone to aspire to; someone with surgeon-like precision, a hard worker, adaptable, clever, clean and polished. It was kind of irritating. But mum reassured her that she’d be up there amongst the legends too, one day, as long as she worked hard and did what she was told. Lila believed her, because she would know best.

Mum worked with Five, and saw him quite often, and she was quite the legend herself, back in the day. After years of dedicated service, her mum left assassin work, but instead of retiring she came back as an overseer of sorts. They called her ‘The Handler,’ and nobody knew her old name. She’d dedicated her life to the Commission. 

“What’s Five like, mum?” She's 18, and her mum was teaching her techniques. Learning to be an assassin is like learning chess. You learn how to checkmate before you learn opening strategies, because at the end of the day, it’s not the style and finesse that is important, it’s the whether or not the job gets done. 

“Five’s an interesting character,” her mother says with one of her cryptic smiles. “It’s interesting that you mention him actually, he’s a good example.” _Yes, she knows, she’s heard._ Though she can’t imagine the old man doing anything like the diagrams on mum’s projector show her. She shudders in disgust.

“I know what you’re thinking, and no, he uses _different_ techniques. He’s not like us, darling. Our methods are more... personal,” mum quirks her eyebrows suggestively, and Lila smiles in response. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be just as good, however. In fact, we are _far_ better.”

Lila gazes passively at the wall lit by the projector. The dicks used to be way funnier when she was younger, when she first started learning how to trap a man with her _feminine wiles._ They’re still funny though. 

“Sex is about power. Sex is control. All men are slaves to it, you understand. Like a wolf licking a bloody knife to death.” 

“Tell me how,” Lila says, ever the good student and dutiful daughter.

“How does the Commission keep hold of a prodigious man like Five, a man with the ability to time travel without using a briefcase, on a leash? Well, they use _me,_ of course,” her mother says, with delighted flourish. “So I can use _him.”_

 _Ew, mum,_ is her first thought. But it’s a good lesson, which she files away for later. The greatest assassin the Commission has in its arsenal was still only a man, after all. And no matter how powerful a man was, he was still vulnerable. They could have the golden fleece itself, but she could still bring them down with pin-pricks.

* * *

Since their fight ruined her date night, she told herself he owed her a redo. 

“It’s prom night.” 

_How can you take down an enemy you’re not allowed to kill?_

You pin him down between your legs. You bite his lips until they’re bloody. You fuck him, so he knows he’s being fucked, that you own him. Sex is about power, about control.

He looks quite nice, actually, like he really is about to spend the night in some school gym, grinding on age-appropriate girls to the deafening sound of pop music over cheap speakers. It’s a funny image. She’d been planning this for a while, while she and Diego looked for apartments. While he talked to her about whether it was more important to have a large living room or bedroom she thought about what hairstyle would go with what dress. What shoes she should wear for her big night. If she should wear black or red panties.

He’s looking at her, confused. She forgot how clueless men could be, even clever boys like Five. It’s ruining her vibe. She lets him flounder around with her words, until realization creeps onto his face. He shakes his head. He swallows; she can see the Adam's apple bob in his pale throat.

“You really are just like your mother, aren’t you? You’re disgusting. A pathetic excuse for a woman.”

“She was my mentor, wasn’t she? After _you_ made me an orphan, she taught me everything she knew. Call it poetic justice.”

“I only did it under her orders, if you’ll recall.”

“Nice Nuremberg defense. They did hang those Nazis anyway, _if you’ll recall.”_

“And _I’m_ Jewish,” he adds, like it matters to her. She wonders how he knows. He doesn’t know his real mother; none of the siblings did. “And I know. I was there.”

Her voice is soft and cold like snow. “Then you should know what’s coming is exactly what you deserve.”

He looks at her. He’s beautiful in this light, picturesque even, and she feels like she should be taking a picture to save this moment, a nice picture she’ll rest at her mother’s grave in Dallas. He’s the devil inside of a boy, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Mum taught her how to kill wolves.

He stalks up to the desk, circling around it like a vulture. “There is nothing you can do to make me lesser.” His voice is a low tenor, and it sends a thrill up her spine. “You can’t control me.” He’s fully in the light of the lamp, standing over her. A visage of the grim reaper. Corpse-blue eyes meet hers, full of daring. 

She doesn’t know if she saw his eyes, when he shot both of her parents point-blank. She’d remember eyes like those. It’s so funny, after all her kiss-and-kills that she’d finally get to fuck Death himself. Poetic indeed. She was soaking at the thought.

She’s going to destroy him. She wants to slit his throat while he’s inside her, and then cut his dick off too. She wants him to die knowing what she’s done to him, knowing that everyone else will too.

She slowly lifts herself out of the chair, weightless, eyes looking up to meet him. She grins, her teeth like a shark’s, her eyes beady and black as the void. They’re so close now, he can probably smell her lavender perfume. Her hand rises; strokes his face like a lover’s, like her mother did to him long before. He doesn’t smack her hand away, understanding this for what it is. His cheek is only slightly rough, though not rough like how a man’s should be. It strikes her then that he's 16 now, 16 and a half. A part of her mind wanders and thinks what this might look like to the outside world, to normal people; a boy, getting touched by a woman over twice his age.

“You’re just a little fish,” she says, hands gliding to the back of his neck, pulling him forward. And she kisses him. 

She knows she has him when he freezes in her hands. 

She hears a distant thud, feels wood behind her back. He’s pushed her against the wall. Her hands are on him in an instant, grabbing at his hair and hooking onto his belt loops. He lets her. His eyes are shielded so she locks on to them, making him look at her. It’s so kinky that they’re going to fuck in his dead dad’s office. Ghosts are real, she knows, after living with Klaus all this time. Five’s ego won’t let him leave, just like she thought, so he pushes himself onto her gracelessly, instead. He’s biting her collarbone and squeezing her tits with the intent to hurt, and it feels so fucking good, to know she has him like this. She’s already working at his belt, already several moves ahead of him; he hasn’t even pulled her dress off yet. His slacks are falling, revealing those adorable boxers, so he bends down and lifts up her dress. 

“I bet you never fucked my mum like this,” she gasps, his fingers already jamming themselves under the lace. She settled on black. She’s all hot, she’s on fire, and yet she’s never felt more cold. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t even look at her, just rubs her clit, trying to make her fall apart first. So she kicks him onto the floor and straddles him. He lets her hold his hands over his head. 

“I knew you got a kick out of that. Sick fuck,” he grits out.

She shuts him up with a bite to his lip, and then shoves her tongue down his throat. She’s thrusting her hips on him, fucking him into the floor, and she can feel him stabbing her, exactly where she wants him to. His hands are clenched in the place she leaves them, refusing to help her, as she flips open his blazer, pulls up his sweater and starts ripping away at shirt buttons. She’s going to leave marks on him. He won’t be able to hide it; his loving family’s going to know exactly how much their brother was reduced and debased, right under their noses. He’s grimacing when she does it, like she’s actually branding him, and it just makes it so much hotter. 

He’s already leaking precum on the inside of her dress and on her naked thighs, when she finally grabs him and stuffs his cock inside of her. Her hands are over his again, and he’s bucking into her, violent and angry, and it’s perfect. He comes quickly, eyes shut and body spasming like a dying thing, and she laughs, still rocking on his overly sensitive cock before he eventually goes soft. It’s perfect, so deliciously perfect. He’s frozen, and his scrawny legs are wooden beneath her. He’s flushed from the orgasm and embarrassment, his face screwed like an infant about to start wailing, and yet no noise or tears come out. He’s beaten, thoroughly and absolutely. She's conquered death himself. She really should take that picture, shouldn’t she? He looks terrible and beautiful like this, so debauched and drained. She wonders if this is what mum felt like, taming him. She’s high on her own ecstasy and she hasn’t even orgasmed yet.

When she finally comes, grinding herself against his stiff body, his face has already relaxed into a sallow and deathly pale, gazing lifelessly at the door. When she grabs his jaw he’s still not looking at her, eyes transfixed on something. Curious, she tries to see what he’s looking at. 

There’s a glint of steel that she recognizes; peeking at her from a crack where the door meets the floor.

She pauses. Her thighs are heavy and sore when she finally scoots off of him. He wastes no time; numbly dressing and then disappearing out of the room in a flash of blue. 

She vomits into a trash can.

* * *

Lila left, as if she disappeared into thin air, without a trace. Diego doesn’t see Five again for a week.

When he finally does see his brother again, he’s in the sitting room in the front of the house, the one with a grand piano tucked into an alcove of bookcases. It’s in the morning and the warm sun floods the room. 

He doesn’t notice Diego at first. He’s wearing one of Vanya’s oversized white sweatshirts and his one pair of blue jeans, completely barefoot. He’s tapping away at the keys, playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” of all things. Strange, because when they were kids, Five could hammer out masterpieces with obnoxious ease. 

His brother’s eyes meet his. The boy’s playing stutters, and for a brief moment, Five looks like a rabbit about to bolt away. So Diego turns around, and heads for the door. 

Vanya catches him as he’s leaving, a soft and placating smile on her face.

“He came to me a week ago and he’s been sleeping on my couch. Said he wanted to try playing the piano again, play duets like when we were kids.” Her face is serene and warm at the memory. “Trouble is, he hasn’t played in over 45 years, so he’s pretty much starting from square one. Don’t tease him too much, okay?” she asks, her eyebrows pinched together in a small plea.

She has no clue. 

When Diego fled the house, blind to the world with the force of his pain and rage, Luther was the one who found and caught him, stopping him from accidentally running into traffic. He didn’t let Luther know either. Not the full extent of it, anyway. All he knew was that Lila just broke up with him. She was already gone from the house by the time they both went inside, and nobody even saw her leave. 

He cried on Luther's and Klaus's shoulders until he was empty, until he was left facing the chasm of what he saw and heard, in all its unfathomable ugliness. And he found he felt nothing, nothing at all. In the aftermath, there was a quiet peace. He couldn’t muster enough hate for Lila, or Five. It was horrible, but so simple in the wake of his emotions, like the aftermath of a disastrous earthquake. There were no more tremors, no more crumbling buildings, or earth-shattering screams and sirens. The land had simply shifted into place, and all he could do was accept its new shape. 

It was like reading that autobiography for the first time. It was like staring at Vanya’s crumpled white form after she destroyed the moon. He loved her then, and he loves her now. His home had crumbled in front of him, just like it did years before, but when he thought of their faces, all he could do was love them. Forgive them, they didn’t know what they’d done, not really. They were chasm people, who only knew the dark and the void, and he knew what that void and darkness looked and felt like. He’d almost leapt into it before, when Eudora was murdered. And of all people, it was his brother who coaxed him out of it, in that blunt and pragmatic way of his. He remembered thinking, how could Five even know how he feels? When he’d had everything taken away from him, when everything beautiful on the Earth had died before he could even experience real love for another person? But he knew that Five’s words weren’t just meaningless platitudes anyhow; he knew that they had to come from somewhere within, for him to feel like saying something at all. Banal comfort just wasn’t Five’s style.

And then it clicked; he’d been talking about them. Their whole family, and him as well. He’d had a fight with Five the night before the boy first disappeared, and the others had joined in. It was ugly, and cruel words were said, all his barbs exposed. And it hurt, once they realized Five wouldn’t be coming back, that the last thing Five would remember of him was his eyes full of wretched, savage hate. And yet, 45 years later, he’d come back to save all their lives. He’d remembered that he’d loved them anyway, and any vengeance wasn't worth the pain of losing their love and what they meant to him.

He sits with Vanya in the kitchen, eating some cookies she brought over from her place. He can hear the stuttering of piano keys in the other room. They’re talking about all sorts of things when Five finally comes in, his practice over. His brother looks 16 years old. His eyes never looked more baby blue. He’s clutching his own elbows, holding himself in. 

And Diego greets him with a smile. 

Five nods, hiding his own gaze, leaving as silently as he came. As he pads away, Diego thinks about paying a visit to a hotel he knows, just a couple of blocks away. He doesn’t plan on staying there, of course, but he remembers Lila liked it there, would sometimes go whenever she wanted out of the house, and that’s as good a place to begin his search as any.

**Author's Note:**

> My [tumblr.](https://nerdkiller.tumblr.com/)


End file.
